This post is all about what is anxiety quotes.
Sometimes, we just need to feel like someone else understands our struggle with anxiety. It’s easy to get lost in the spiraling thoughts and feel alone when no one in your life deals with anxiety like you do.
These 16 what is anxiety quotes will give you a deeper understanding of your anxiety and remind you that other people experience the same thing you do. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or you want to see how other people describe anxiety, these quotes will make you feel seen.
This post is all about what is anxiety quotes.
WHAT IS ANXIETY QUOTES:
1. “We have anxious thoughts because the brain is trying to keep us alive. To the brain, survival is much more important than happiness. So, the brain often conjures up worst case scenarios and “what ifs”, so that we can prepare for disaster. The trouble is, the brain regularly gets it wrong.” — Lucy Russell
As Russell states here, anxiety is one of many ways our body tries to keep us alive. It’s important for your body to pause in the face of uncertainty because that uncertainty might be dangerous. However, nowadays, it’s far more likely that our anxiety is overactive.
Where your brain used to see a new berry and think, “this might hurt me,” your brain now sees a new social situation, exam, or job interview and thinks, “this might hurt me.”
In other words, you brain reacts to situations in which you are in no real danger and convinces you to worry about them. This means that anxiety isn’t inherently negative, but it can be harmful when you brain gets it wrong.
2. “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.” — Thomas Jefferson
Worrying takes time and energy. It’s almost impossible to avoid worrying about something that doesn’t deserve the energy you’re spending on it at some point in your life. You’ll spend way too much time worrying about a future scenario or consequence that will never happen.
To a certain extent, anxiety is unavoidable and we should be kind to ourselves when we experience it. But, it’s equally important to be aware of when our anxiety is causing us pain.
We need to keep our anxiety in check with these what is anxiety quotes, especially when it’s causing us pain over scenarios that are both impossible to predict and unlikely to happen in the first place.
3. “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” — Paulo Coelho
Storms happen to everyone and we learn to handle them. Our anxiety is no different in that it affects some people more deeply than others. The more we deal with storms, the more we develop tools and steps to manage them and prepare us for a particularly dangerous storm.
Anxiety is the same way, as Coelho demonstrates. We learn to handle anxiety and we can learn a lot about how to handle it the more we think about it like a storm. It’s inevitable and can be worse for some, but it’s still manageable.
No matter where you are in your mental healthy journey, you can get through your anxiety with the use of tools, practice, and an “emergency kit.” Hopefully, these what is anxiety quotes help too.
4. “Anxiety is like a roommate who never leaves, but we can learn how to live alongside it and not let it control us.” — Unknown
It’s easy to hate your anxiety, and, honestly, it’s completely understandable. Anxiety has caused you pain and stress, some of which has been useful. It doesn’t leave you alone and it has even convinced you that it’s helpful in preventing unwanted consequences.
No matter how much pain our anxiety causes us, we’re still going to endure more pain by believing it’s harmful. Anxiety is one of many survival tactics are bodies use to keep us alive, but it can get overactive in an age when it’s less necessary than ever.
Instead of hating anxiety or shaming ourselves for experiencing it, we could try to be compassionate to ourselves. Rather than trying to get rid of it, we could work with our anxiety and accept it without letting it rule our thoughts or lives.
5. “The way you tell your story to yourself matters.” — Amy Cuddy
Be kind to yourself. The way you talk to yourself matters because you will start to believe whatever story you tell yourself, negative or positive. So, speak to yourself with kindness and remind yourself that you are not your anxiety.
Your anxiety is a part of you, which is not inherently harmful. Tell yourself who you are without your anxiety and be kind to yourself when you struggle to turn off the anxious thoughts.
When you’re struggling to find the person you are without your anxiety, read through these what is anxiety quotes again.
6. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
Anxiety is all about the uncontrollable thoughts that could send you into a downward spiral the moment anything remotely stressful happens in your life. You can’t always stop the thoughts. Maybe you’re running late, or you have a big presentation coming up.
Sometimes, it’s easier to learn how re-center yourself and ground yourself in the moment than it is to cut off your anxious thoughts.
If you struggle with anxiety, you will not always be able to stop the anxiety from making you worry. But, you can learn to breathe, notice your surroundings, and challenge the anxious thoughts.
7. “Anxiety is often rooted in our fear of the unknown. Embracing uncertainty and learning to tolerate discomfort can lead to profound personal growth.” — Unknown
Anxiety is a way to prepare you for uncertain outcomes that could harm you. You think through all of the ways something can go wrong and prepare for them. Therefore, anxiety is really just us being terrified of not knowing what comes next.
The problem is that we can’t experience every possible joy we can find in the world by staying with the precise habits and routines we live in day to day. That’s why learning to be okay with discomfort is so important.
When you learn to feel the difficult emotions that pop from doing the wrong the first time or not doing the right thing, your world will get so much bigger. And you won’t want to go back because the joy outweighs the stress and anxiety of trying something new.
8. “This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.” — Glennon Doyle
You’re the only you and you’re the only one living your life. This is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. On one hand, you get to make decisions, knowing that you’re the only one who can really understand your life and what you’ve been through.
On the other hand, this also means that no one will understand you entirely. Different people will relate to different parts of your experience and people can love even if they don’t understand all parts of your experience.
Ultimately, keep this is in the back of your mind as reminder to keep finding your authentic self no matter what others tell you. Your authentic self is your most fulfilled, happy version and no one can truly understand what that means better than you.
9. “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” — C. S. Lewis
No matter how much your anxiety gets to focus on the mistakes you’ve made, the fact is that you can’t change them. You can learn from them and improve the next time a similar situations happens. But, you’re hurting yourself every time you beat yourself up over the past.
So, process your feelings. Do the work to understand what went wrong. But, then, you put your energy into looking forward and figuring how to do better next time.
And when we say process your feelings, we mean it. Avoid intellectualizing your way out of feeling the uncomfortable stuff because that’s just you avoiding the feelings and trying to solve your way out of them.
10. “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” — Brené Brown
You’re here to read about anxiety and you may not be a perfectionism or, by extension, a people pleaser. But, we’re willing to bet that at least some of your anxiety is caused by trying to please someone that makes it difficult.
If you’ve ever tried to do something perfectly to gain someone’s admiration, you’ve been a perfectionist. By definition, perfectionism is impossible to achieve because you can’t control how other people see you or literally anything.
So, anytime you get anxiety about trying to be the perfect student, partner, daughter, son, employee, friend, etc., you can’t control how other people see you.
11. “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” — Rupi Kaur
There’s a lot of pressure to automatically how to love yourself. And that can be really difficult if you’re never thought about the way you love yourself at all.
For a lot people, the first time they think about the way they need to love is by being in their first intimate relationship. They realize they’re not feeling loved and they try to figure out what is missing from the other person that would fill that gap.
You don’t have to have all the answers when you get into a relationship. Personal growth is part of what happens when you get to know somebody and get closer to them than you’ve ever been with anyone else.
So, let it while also not relying too heavily on your partner to be the source of growth in your life. Find a reason to grow with or without them so they can learn to love you better as you learn how you need to be loved.
12. “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Soren Kierkegaard
In a way, anxiety is a good thing. It means that you have lots of choices and opportunities in your life, to the point where you get stressed out thinking about them.
To be clear, we, here at Knockoff Therapy, have a love-hate relationship with anxiety. So, we are in no way trying to say it’s entirely positive or helpful. Instead, you can think of your anxiety as a positive sign that you’re challenging yourself.
However, when you experience chronic or severe anxiety, it’s important to find ways of managing it so it doesn’t interfere with the life you want to live. In other words, avoid your fear of uncertainty keeping you from doing the things that triggered your fear.
13. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” — Steven Hayes
There’s nothing wrong with staying comfortable as long as that’s what you want. On one level, you have the version of you that wants to have new experiences.
On another level, your anxiety keeps in check and can convince you that your authentic self doesn’t want those new experiences when really it’s your anxiety. There’s no universal fix to know the difference between what you want to do and what your anxiety wants you to do.
What’s important is realizing that you are not your anxiety. Your anxiety wants you to worry about everything, so anything uncertain makes it go into overdrive. That’s why it doesn’t always want to realize what your authentic self wants.
14. “She has been through hell. So believe me when I say, fear her when she looks into a fire and smiles.” — E. Corona
You’ve been through a lot regardless of how difficult or easy you think your life has been. Just by existing, you’ve gotten through so much. If you have struggled with anxiety for the majority of your life, you’ve gotten through even more.
It sucks to battle your thoughts on a daily basis, especially when you didn’t realize that you had anxiety. So, while you may never have smiled into a fire as the quote suggests, you are capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for.
You’ve lived life and dealt with anxiety at the same time. Plus, you’re learning about anxiety and you’re improving your mental health. So, you’ve not only survived but you want to thrive.
15. “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you deal with anxiety, it’s easy to focus on getting through the day or week or year. You work on coping mechanisms and figuring past trauma. You do so much work, both for a paycheck and on yourself, that you probably forget to dream.
Think about your goals and what all of it’s for. You should be doing the work to get healthier and happier. But, it’s also important to remind yourself what you’re aiming towards. Ask yourself what you want and what will make you happy in five years.
16. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Henry S. Haskins
You have so much potential. The fact that you are reading this blog shows how much you care about improving your mental health and managing your anxiety.
So, no matter what you are dealing with in your life and in the world, you can handle it. It may be painful and it may suck, but you are infinitely capable of growing and overcoming every struggle you face.
Don’t take this to mean you get to avoid feeling the hard stuff or that you should have to deal with any pain (you shouldn’t). Instead, reminder yourself that you are completely capable of dealing with the pain and becoming a better, healthier person when you get through it.
